On a Rainy Day During Spring Break

We are on Spring Break today. Acutally, we have been on Spring Break for a week already and won't be back in school till a week from today. 

The first week of Spring Break was for Cat and myself and "Intersession" where we were tutoring students in need of extra help for school and the end of term tests that our middle school and high school students have to take.

I had about 6 or 7 students come to my classes, all of them 9th graders.  They do not have to take the high school End of Instruction (EOI) tests, so the tutoring I did with them mainly consisted of helping them with reading, writing and vocabulary.

We wrote poems, did interviews that appeared in newspaper articles they created, created posters, and read some essays.  They seemed to enjoy most of it, but I cannot say that they made much improvement or really needed to in the first place.

We keep trying to find ways to help our students, but we never seem to get the job done.  I keep thinking there must some some magic trick that will turn straw into gold.

It has been raining all day today.  I don't mind it because the state has been through one of the worst droughts ever, but it means that we cannot get out and tend to our yard like we would like too.  So, I come inside and do some reading, plan my lessons for the rest of the year, and enjoy a little down time.

Gonna get more dramatic?

I had my conversation with Dr. Roy, our consultant, and Ms. Jaramillo (Ms. J to all of us) over what they saw in my classroom yesterday.

One thing Dr. Roy told me is that I love my subject, and I want my students to love it. So, he said I need to look for ways to invite them in.

Ms. J said that I ought to borrow the techniques I use when I announce the school football games. I need to put myself "on stage" so to speak.

So my students should expect me to be a bit more of a performer in the classroom. (Though probably not as much as the guy above.

Any suggestions on how to pull this off?

When Bad Things Happen to (Pretty) Good Teachers

Today was one of "those days" at school.

On Friday, my principal, Ms. Johnson, informed me that a couple of consultants would be in the building on Monday and Tuesday to visit our classes.  They would be specifically looking at our classwork "engagement strategies"--those things we do in our lessons that get the students involved in learning and excited about their education. Not the sort of image that many of our adolescent learners have about their days in the classroom.

Actually, I have been trying to up my game about my teaching techniques and engagement is one of the areas I am trying to explore.  So, most of the day Sunday I was hunched over my school laptop trying to come up with some engaging lessons for my juniors and seniors.  I should say I was hunched over my school laptop and my home desk computer because, unfortunately, I left the power cord for my laptop at the school and the power ran down half-way through the process.  I don't know if this caused the later problems, but it should have been an omen.

After working from mid-morning to late at night, I had two pretty good lessons, I thought.  The junior would be analyzing Langston Hughes poem, "Mother to Son". (Well, son, I'll tell you:/
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.)

Specifically, they would be looking at the extended metaphor of the "crystal stair" in the poem. I had a pre-assessment using the Smartboard, a Power Point presentation, and a handout that would help the students take really good notes.


I wanted to give the seniors an introduction to the British Romantic movement starting with William Blake and William Wordsworth. I had a Power Point for them, a note-taking guide, even a YouTube hip hop version of Wordsworth poem "Daffodils".

All set for the big day on Monday.

I managed to get through the first hurdle: beating everyone else to the one functioning copy machine we still have in our building.

When I got to the classroom, I set up the now re-charged laptop and fired it up to get things ready.

That's when the trouble started.  Nothing worked. My Smartboard wasn't talking to my laptop, no matter how much I rebooted, pleaded, swore, or threatened violence.  My laptop itself seemed to have trouble getting on with the program that I had loaded from my home computer to my flash drive. Finally, it's screen went blank except for the message that somehow, my operating system was nowhere to be found. I rebooted and got the same message. My great plans were no more!

I went screaming, inwardly at least, to Ms. Jaramillo (Ms. J), the high school assistant principal. There in her office was one of the consultants. I explained my problem to both of them and charged back to my classroom trying to figure out what the heck to do.

Sure enough, as soon as I started teaching Ms. J and the consultant came to my room.  I used the note-taking guide and the poem for my lesson.  My presentation was rather "old school", using the white board in place of the Power Point.  I got through best I could. About half-way through they got up and left. The consultant, a very nice guy, said that we would consult on what he observed tomorrow.

I had turned the computer off at the beginning of class. At the end, I walked over to my now dead machine and turned it on one more time.  It worked fine. The Smart Board picked up up the image from my lesson like no problem ever existed. 

There are those times when you don't know whether to cry, laugh, scream, throw things, throw up your hands and give up, give up your hands and throw up, or just follow the advice in "Mother to Son":

So boy, don’t you turn back.

Don’t you set down on the steps

’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now—

For I’se still goin’, honey,

I’se still climbin’,

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

--Langston Hughes

Organizational Health Inventory

I was not in school today, nor will I be there tomorrow.  Instead, I am in a workshop with my principal, Ms. Johnson, and fellow AFT building representative Linda Dudley going over the results and significance of the Organizational Health Inventory (OHI) that our district has done every year for the past 8 years or so. 

The OHI is a survey done by the school's teachers and administrators designed to measure how everyone feels about their working conditions, things like do we feel focused on our school's goals? do we feel empowered to reach those goals? do we feel we have enough autonomy to carry our our mission to attain our goals? and so on.  This is Ms. Johnson's first year as our principal, so she and the other first-year principals (about 18 or so) were there with each building's union reps to get the lowdown on what the survey said and what it means for us.

According to the survey, our organization health really improved over last year.  The staff were more positive in each of the 8 categories covered in the inventory.  One reason was probably due to the feeling that, even though we are a "needs improvement school" operating under a "School Improvement Grant", we finally had been given clear directions on what we were supposed to be doing (Goal Focus was our highest category) and more of the means to be able to do it.

Had the survey been taken later in the school year, it is always taken near the start of school, the news would probably not have been as positive.  Back in October, as Ms. Johnson put it, we all hit a collective wall.  For one, we had been in school since August 1st and for another, the reality of our situation began to weigh on us.  No matter what new techniques we had been trained to do, we still were faced with many of the same problems we have always had with our students. They had not yet turned into the model scholars we all dream of teaching.  Some of us, me included, struggled with applying the new techniques.  Some drifted back into old habits of teaching, which is what one does when one feels a bit lost in the new methods. 

I think then, things have gotten better. At least they have with me.  I am beginning to finally learn how to organize my lessons and approaches better.  I still struggle with classroom management, but I use technology more and have learned some good engagement strategies.

I think that most of our faculty are on-board with the direction we are going and the course corrections we need to make.  I hope we can see real improvement in our students' test scores because that will give us a real boost in morale (another OHI category that in our school could use improvement).

On (finally) Winning a Chess Game at Barnes and Noble

Tonight, I went to the Barnes and Noble at 61st and May Ave. to play chess.  A group of chess lovers have been meeting there for several years now, and I have played there off and on, mostly off.  In all that time, I've have never won a chess game and didn't expect to do so that night.  In fact, I didn't do so on my first game against a young man who was somewhere in his teens or twenties. (When you are like me, a few weeks away from 60, the young can be anywhere from 12-35 and still look basically the same.)  His name was Caleb and after about 30 moves or so, I had to resign in the face of overwhelming odds. (My king and rook versus most of his armed forces.) 

About mid-way through our game, we were told by the manager of the bookstore that the chess club, which had been meeting the the store coffee shop, had been given a "reserved" area back in the store.  So after Caleb had whomped me, we took our boards and pieces to the "reserved" area.  This turned out to be about half a dozen plastic picnic tables and some folding chairs. 

Caleb wandered off to find more worthy competition while I set up my set on the rickety table and dusted off a couple of chairs.  Soon a man named Eduardo sat down to play me.  Edurado was somewhere near my age. (When you are nearing 60 this can be anywhere from 35 to Methuselah.) I remembered playing Eduardo a couple of years ago. (He didn't.) I had never won against him (see above).  But tonight, for the very first time, I DID.  I managed to push a passed pawn to the back rank and used the pawn's promotion to capture his queen.  From there, I pushed my advantage on to victory!!!!!

He politely requested rematch to which I happily agreed. I figured that he would have a chance to even the score, and we would part on equal terms.  But I proved lightening could strike twice in the same place because this time I used two knights to drive his king into a corner where I achieved checkmate FOR THE SECOND TIME IN THE SAME KNIGHT (ere) NIGHT.

By this time, I had to get home. ("School night," I explained.)  So I left Barnes and Noble with a winning record for the first time in my life.

Of course, I will be back.

Teachers Propose Reform. Will Anyone Listen?

Today, I participated in a workshop at put on by my union American Federation of Teachers that focused on our response to the No Child Left Behind wavier the federation Department of Education granted the state of Oklahoma.

In the waiver, the state Department of Education establishes the policy of giving a letter grade, A-F, to all schools in the state.  Furthermore, it established a list of "Priority Schools" that the state could take over because these schools are deemed failures in educating children.

Oklahoma Centennial Mid/High School, where I teach, is on that list.

According to the waiver, the state could leave the school under district control because the school is already sufficiently implementing school improvement measures. The also has the option of running the school itself or turn the school over to an outside entity such as an educational corporation or charter group.  In the last two cases, all staff in the school would be subject to a performance review and any protection previously afforded to those staff by the collective bargaining agreement between the union and the district would be null and void.

The workshop is an attempt by the union to have a say in any school reforms the district or the state may wish to adopt under the waiver.  In the workshop, we discussed teacher and administrative evaluations, parent/stuff contracts, teacher performance incentives, teacher peer assistance, and so forth.

There is no guarantee that any of our suggested reforms will ever be enacted.  Past practice does not offer much hope in that matter.  Teacher suggestions, particularly those offered by their union typically do not receive much notice from the powers that be whether they "be" in the district, the state department of education, or the legislature. 

But we have to try something. I will publish the results of our efforts and try to get them out to anyone who will listen.

I'll see what happens.

On Having My Teaching Judged By a "Boring A**" Exam

Today my students took their English 11 district benchmark exam, the one the district will judge our school and me on how well we have educated our students this year.  I had the students from my time block 1 English 11 class, a pretty good bunch of kids.  They, for the most part, took their time and, I think, did their best.  One young man, however, arrived half way through the allotted 3 class periods time set aside by the school for the students to take this important exam. Nevertheless, he finished the exam, though I suspect he rushed through it to get it out of the way.

Another teacher had my 7th time block class, the one with several problem children in it. He reported to me that a couple of students appeared to wait till near the end of the allotted time and then rushed through marking answers at random. Another had her head down on her desk nearly the entire period. Three or four times he went over and admonished her to get her head off her desk and take the test seriously.  The last time he tried, she didn't bother to lift her head. She simply looked up at him and closed her eyes.  However, she handed in a completed answer sheet at the end of the testing period.

My point is, how can we as a school and I as a teacher be fairly judged by the results of this test when some of the students don't take it seriously at all.  After all, this is not, by their reasoning a real test. It's just, in the words of one student, another "boring a** exam" he is made to take much against his will. Yet these exams are taken very seriously by the power that be in our district and our state.  It is even possible that my career could be adversely affected by an exam that my students just blow off casually.

It doesn't seem fair somehow.